The Other Side of Night
by Kadevi
Summary: Songfiction. Picard has searched long and hard for answers to the questions that continue to plague him sincer her death. He can't forget her, but perhaps fate will allow them both one moment of comfort past the barriers separating them.


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The Other Side of Night 

**By Kadevi-chan**

A songfiction written for Elena on her birthday... Happy Birthday, Elena!! May all your hopes spread wings and fly true this year, and for all years after...

_Song:: "The Other Side Of Night" – The Rembrandts_

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_Sometimes, I wake up at night. And I still think you are here... it is like you never left. I've tried so hard to forget about you, and move on. I had lived for too many years without love... when I lost you, I think I lost a part of myself that I never knew I had before._

He moved about the room, complacently and yet not quite so, moving things around again after the rough journey. Several books were askew upon the ground, and the brightly patterned blue rug was shifted around with its corners all in the wrong places and the fringe soaking wet as well. The storm had done its work.

Picard sighed and brushed his hands, finally done. The cabin was practically sparkling new again. With a look outside, he noticed the cloudless night, with stars beyond... and moving slightly to the right, he could also see the bright silver Luna. Crescent, now, she was. The panoply of stars surrounding her twinkled remorsefully at him, reminding him of times long past... times long gone... times that no longer hurt as much as they had.__

_No spell that I could cast would ever bring you back too soon_

_Still I search for hidden answers underneath this faded moon_

Picard pulled on the loose blue tunic as he kicked off his boots, finally resorting to sitting down and tugging them off because they just _wouldn't_ come off. _If she were here..._

His mind pushed the thought away before he could finish it.

After finally pulling on a pair of loose blue trousers, he dropped himself into bed, 'feeling' the water around his ship to check the currents and winds. He didn't want to waste any Psynergy out here, just so he could reach his destination faster. Last time...

Again, a grimace of pain reached his face and he shoved the thought away.

Picard's golden eyes stared outside the glass-paned window of the small cabin, watching the moonlight glint off the clear surface. Watching the midnight-blue sky go on endlessly, finally meeting the ocean in an indiscernible line at the horizon. _Watching for answers that you never could find, Picard, _a piercing thought whispered. He winced as it continued. _Sailor though you are, you can sail all of Weyard and the Great Seas and never find her again. Never find out why what happened, happened._

_The view from here should soothe my soul, even shed some kind of light_

_Because I know the sun is shining on the other side of night_

_The other side of night_

Silently a figure watched, swimming through the sky far above the clouds. She cried because of the pain she knew he must feel, the pain he must still hold so close to his heart. He still thought it was his fault... but it had just been jealous Fate, when he had wanted to bring her back to the sky with him.__

_I wish I had been able to stay with you... Picard..._

Still in tears, she turned and ran.__

_Now you're moving through your waking world_

_While in my sleep I dream_

_You drift as closely as you can without ever being seen_

Picard shifted restlessly on his bed. It was still so painful at night, when he dreamt. They were filled with visions of the storm, the endless torrent of rain. _Lightning flashed in the distance, thunder rumbled in the sky. The noise was deafening, of the rain pattering on the deck, of the driving waves pounding against the hull of the Lemurian-made ship. The mast rocked from side to side against the now and again illuminated sky with the rolling of the waves, and what with the thunder roaring so close above their heads, Picard could hardly hear anything. She didn't cling to him, but her presence was there, reassuring him of their safety and her own. _Then the flash of lightning... it hit the deck just in front of his feet... and he lost sight of her.

He shot up in bed.

When he saw the blue carpet just beyond his bed, Picard sighed, relieved and pained at the same time. Golden eyes disappeared behind his curtain of aquamarine hair, and he was hard put to keep from crying. But then he paused.

And as soon as he gathered the courage to raise his golden orbs towards the window, hopeful eyes met with tearful blue ones.__

_But I know you're there beside me_

_Just beyond my line of sight_

_Out where the sun is always shining_

He blinked disbelievingly.

She was gone.

_No... Mia!! _Picard swung his legs to the boards and sat up, fully awake now.

_I know I saw her... Mia... and she is still here._

But he couldn't see her sparkling azure eyes, or gentle, sweet smile. And the lush waterfall of hair that marked her as Mercury Adept. He sighed haltingly, trying to push back pain long-forgotten... How many months had he sailed blindly, remembering the happy memories of himself seeing the world again with Mia? There had been the time, sailing back to Vale from Prox... and then when he had taken her back to Imil, he had been standing at the prow of his ship, staring out at the sparklingly icy waters just beyond the Mercury Lighthouse. The ship was lifting off... he hadn't yet said goodbye to Mia because no one had seen her that morning.

But just as he was flying past the aerie, a miracle had happened.__

_"Picard!!"_

Sometimes, he could still here her at night... her musical shout. In his dreams. When he was cutting through the waves, out in the open sea. He would turn, and see nothing. And his heart would tear slightly every time.__

_On the other side of night_

_On the other side of night_

_What if I hadn't hear her that day? I would not have really gotten to know Mia... and she would always have been 'the other Mercury Adept' to me. I would never have seen the world as she did. Stood with her at the top of Mercury Lighthouse, or inside Aqua Rock, where we swam in the cool water... We would not have seen our first glimpse of the mythic Wonder Bird in the Sea of Time Islet, and discovered that Mercury Djinni hiding behind that statue._

_I would not have all these memories, if I hadn't heard her and kept flying._

_But she would still be alive._

_If you had stayed_

_Would I have ever found a reason_

_To feel this way_

_If you had waited one more season_

Picard slowly walked outside, to the prow of his ship. Now that he was awake, it was cruising slowly through the still ocean water. But, the fog was thickening, which meant hwas getting close to Lemuria, so he stopped the ship again. Exhausted and numb with grief again, Picard stared up at Luna.

What had Isaac told him at her funeral?... "You don't know how much you care until what you care for is lost. Mia was always there for us, quiet as she was... we did not know what a treasure we traveled with until... now..."

He left his thoughts drift this time, like the ship drifted on the open waters. They drifted back to that horrible night...

_They were sailing to Lemuria, because that was the only place Mia had not yet seen. The whirlpools had confounded them to no end, and when they finally made their way through them, they'd had to face Poseidon. Of course, Isaac and the others had just barely managed to escape that fiasco. So they had never actually gotten a chance to see the ancient civilization of Lemuria. Mia was so eager to see his home._

_But then the storm blew up out of nowhere. Lightning, thunder, rain, towering waves. After the bolt of lightning struck his ship, Picard lost sight of Mia. He still felt her nearby, but no longer by his side. When he found her again, she was hanging onto a rope near the rail, half in, half out of the ship._

If he had been fast enough, he would have reached her before the Turtle Dragon had. It had dragged the weakened and dazed Mia off the ship, and into the turbulent waters of the ocean. Picard had dived in after her.

After a furious and desperate battle, Picard somehow managed to bring himself and Mia back onto the ship. But she had been injured. And with neither of them left with Psynergy, he could only watch helplessly as her life waned and flickered like a feeble candle standing just beyond the rain, under the eaves. As she took a shuddering last breath, he had whispered the emotions he didn't know he'd felt until now.__

_"I love you, Mia."_

Had she heard him as she closed her eyes to his face?

If they had not shared so many things together, would he have known he'd loved her?

If he had not been in such a hurry to reach Lemuria, would he have been able to save her from Death's arms?

Was his only destiny in life to lose all those that were dear to him?__

_Though I know you're out there somewhere_

_Only you can prove me right_

_Since you're the one who crossed the boundary to the other side of night_

_To the other side of night_

There were so many questions still that he wanted her to answer for him. Picard sighed, letting the tears roll their way down his face with the raindrops that had begun to fall. _I wish you could answer these questions for me, Mia..._

_To the other side of night_

_To the other side of night_

As soon as his eyes closed from fatigue, an airy figure appeared before him again, where moonlight still touched the ship. Mia, a wavering, ethereal figure, also cried tears of pain.

She bent at his side, covering him with her old waterproof blue cloak. Psynergy moved the tightly woven cloth around Picard, wrapping itself around him and hooding his long blue hair and sleeping face from the drizzle. Mia stood in the rain, and yet not quite in it, for the drops fell all around her and through her, spattering on the deck where her shadow should have been. But then, for one moment, she put her lips to his, as she had never done in life. Her body appeared solid again, her hair reflecting the moonlight in beams of silver off her head once again.

"I love you, Picard," she whispered. Her head fell to his shoulder, and she sat by his side. Instinctively, floating through his own dreams, Picard wrapped his arms around Mia. Both of them sighed, content at last... even if it was only in his dreams, and she only as a spirit of her past.__

_To the other side of night_

_To the other side of night_

"I love you, Mia..."

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**_~Happy Birthday Elena~_**

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**_May all your hopes spread wings and fly true this year_**

**_And for all years after._**

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**_~Kadevi~_**

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